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CES 2012: LaCie Hub Connects eSATA Drives to Thunderbolt Macs

Sunday January 8, 2012 4:29 pm PST by Arnold Kim
CNet reports on a new eSATA Hub from LaCie which allows you to connect external eSATA drives to your Thunderbolt equipped Mac.

The hub comes with two Thunderbolt ports and two eSATA ports. Users can connect up to two eSATA drives to the hub for use on their Thunderbolt equipped Macs. The additional Thunderbolt ports can also be used to daisy chain additional Thunderbolt peripherals off the device.

eSATA is a high performance drive connector used to connect external hard drives to your computer. eSATA has never been a standard option on Macs, but is a faster alternative to USB 2.0 and Firewire and is commonly found on high performance external drives and storage arrays. As noted by CNet, eSATA devices are also presently cheaper than their Thunderbolt counterparts. While Thunderbolt has a higher maximum speed than eSATA, if you are just connecting a single external drive (and not a drive array), it's not likely to exceed the upper limit of eSATA.

So, for those who are have existing eSATA drives or are waiting for Thunderbolt drives to drop in price, this could be a good interim solution. Unfortunately, LaCie hasn't released a price yet, but this eSATA hub is expected to be available during the first quarter of 2012.
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tonydickinson
89 months ago
LacCie

So many issues with LaCie devices and the customer support or lack of it and of course their very inflated prices.

I will wait and see what Belkin come up with as although their prototype looked strange, they are usually of reasonable quality and with much better customer service that Lacie.
Rating: 8 Votes
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Ahheck01
89 months ago
That's great, but what about a hub to connect USB 3.0 devices to Thunderbolt?
Rating: 8 Votes
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Nielsenius
89 months ago
Don't worry, all of these accessories will be competitively priced. Of course, there is no competition at the moment, so...
Rating: 8 Votes
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appleguru1
89 months ago
Thunderbolt has been the most botched tech launch I can think of in recent memory. A year out and we still dont have basic products like this on the market... And devices are way overpriced.

My esata hdd drives have been sitting unused since launch day of this thunderbolt mbp... Here's to hoping that finally changes soon..
Rating: 6 Votes
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twoodcc
89 months ago
well i guess this is a start, but where's a thunderbolt hard drive enclosure?
Rating: 4 Votes
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Skika
89 months ago
Make this a 99$ product and we are talking.
Rating: 4 Votes
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mrr
89 months ago
Please someone in China jump on the Thunderbolt bandwagon - so that we won't have to play inflated LaCie prices!

I can get Chinese eSATA and USB 3.0 drive enclosures on sale for FREE after rebate at Frys!

Bring on the cheap Thunderbolt drive enclosures !
Rating: 4 Votes
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InuNacho
89 months ago

So many issues with LaCie devices and the customer support or lack of it and of course their very inflated prices.


I have a 1 TB external made by LaCie and I fear it's nearing death's door even though it's less than a year old. The Thailand flooding ruined any chances of me getting a more reliable drive so now I'm stuck with a drive that will most likely croak in a few months time.
Rating: 4 Votes
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ninjadex
89 months ago
This sounds great. Sticker price will likely be a shock to those without a clue.
Rating: 3 Votes
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GekkePrutser
89 months ago

My Apple rumors for 2012: Thunderbolt was not developed for just a faster hard drive connection and not just so Apple could create a new display with network connectivity built in. It is much bigger than that. I think they are making an add on device that will connect to any Thunderbolt enabled computer to make it Mac Pro capable. It will have awesome graphics capabilities, much more disk expansion, and additional processors, say up to 12 more. This will provide pro level options for all of their computers. They will not have to sell a pro model anymore.


Thunderbolt isn't fast enough for extra processors. The memory bus, for one, is many times faster than Thunderbolt.

Besides, if you're going to have an add-on device with processors, memory, drives, graphics, you have enough hardware for a stand-alone computer. What's the point then of making it purely an expansion box?
Rating: 3 Votes

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